If you're someone I know in real life or you've been keeping up with the infrequently updated news on the front page of splateagle.com, you'll know that I recently rolled out a personal advertising campaign of sorts as a new approach to my on-going job hunt. Well in under two working days I've got further with this than I have in six months of conventional job hunts, and on Monday I have an interview!
The company in question has made it very clear that they're not sure they have anything for me (in fact I think I have them a little baffled!) but they are hiring and I've certainly got their attention, so that's a start!
As promised here is a .pdf copy of the main part of my mail-shot (it's 72kb and if you don't already have one, you'll need some kind of .pdf reader like Preview or Acrobat to view it) - there's a little yellow insert with my contact details that I haven't included because it's kinda fiddly to make into a .pdf file, and because I'm not asking you lot for a job! also the file as it stands won't make a lot of sense unless it's printed out and folded in six (in half lengthwise and then into three making it an even square) but it gives you an idea what I'm blethering about.
The random musings and happenings of a young-ish professional-ish man who lives in Scotland, thinks in Mandelbrot shapes and frequently feels too much
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Monday, March 29, 2004
short
I'm feeling short today. I have no idea why, but I am (and before certain people start, I am not short, I just feel short - OK?)
I used to get this a lot when I lived in Aberdeen where periodically the streets would be filled with oil rig workers on leave - all of whom seemed to me to be implausibly tall! I'd be walking up Union Street, and find myself standing at a pedestrian crossing at only shoulder height with all the other people on the pavement! I'm really really not short. I'm not particularly tall either (about five feet nine inches, or one hundred and seventy five centimeters tall, which is a perfectly respectable middling sort of height) but I never really feel like my height - my mental image of myself is a good couple of inches taller than his real-world counterpart on most days, so it's doubly unsettling when I have a short day... especially when there aren't any big strapping riggers about to gawp at by way of compensation ;)
I used to get this a lot when I lived in Aberdeen where periodically the streets would be filled with oil rig workers on leave - all of whom seemed to me to be implausibly tall! I'd be walking up Union Street, and find myself standing at a pedestrian crossing at only shoulder height with all the other people on the pavement! I'm really really not short. I'm not particularly tall either (about five feet nine inches, or one hundred and seventy five centimeters tall, which is a perfectly respectable middling sort of height) but I never really feel like my height - my mental image of myself is a good couple of inches taller than his real-world counterpart on most days, so it's doubly unsettling when I have a short day... especially when there aren't any big strapping riggers about to gawp at by way of compensation ;)
Monday, March 22, 2004
"hum"
Something in the Library has started making a low whining sound and if it carries on for much longer I might well go insane.
Had a great weekend with Mum and Dad who came to visit, we didn't really do anything because - as always happens when my parents visit me - Scotland decided to rain all weekend (of course now that it's Monday and they've gone home the sun has been shining from a crystal clear blue sky all day. bah.) However we had fun sitting about and being the Bears who Stayed Indoors as Mum put it.
... must go and locate the source of this crazy-making noise...
Had a great weekend with Mum and Dad who came to visit, we didn't really do anything because - as always happens when my parents visit me - Scotland decided to rain all weekend (of course now that it's Monday and they've gone home the sun has been shining from a crystal clear blue sky all day. bah.) However we had fun sitting about and being the Bears who Stayed Indoors as Mum put it.
... must go and locate the source of this crazy-making noise...
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Pneu
Last night after picking up the week's shopping in Sainsbury's, I got back to the car to find one of my back tyres had completely deflated - the culprit seems to be a splinter of stone-like material embedded in the tyre itself... I wasn't impressed, not least because my spare is one of those wee emergency ones which limit you to 50mph, but on the other hand I had been thinking I needed new rear tyres anyway.
The two bright-sides to having to go and get it sorted out this morning (you can't keep driving on an emergency spare for long) were firstly the very lovely mechanic I dealt with at Kwik-Fit. We liked him! (by which I mean I did): he was sexy in a very straight-forwardly Scottish way, and he had a lovely voice which made me calm down about the whole thing. With being so much later into town than usual I hit lots of very bad traffic, and then got to Kwik Fit to find I'd left my walet in my other trousers (which of course I'd changed a wheel in and couldn't wear to work.) So all in all I was more than a little stressed, but he had a calm and capable air to him and made me feel it was all alright...
*cough*
anyway... The other thing just made me laugh. One of the other customers waiting was a friendly middle aged woman - one of these types who needs to keep finding things to talk to people about in waiting rooms. I'm just the opposite: I can happily sit quietly the whole time, but I'll also (usually) make the effort to be friendly...
After another lady she'd been talking to left Talky Lady and I chatted happily away about nothing in particular for a while, and then kind of ran out of things to say. Like I said this is fine by me, but I don't think she enjoyed silence - she kept leafing through the papers and engaging me in short conversations about bits of news. After a few minutes of this she reached a full page article (with pictures) about a gay screen-kiss that apparently aired recently on Coronation Street (the paper in question was 'the Sun', and you can always rely on it to cut right to the really serious issues... *rolls eyes*) anyway it was on the little table between us so I could see both the article and (via the wrinkle of her nose at seeing it) what was coming. This isn't a word for word transcript but it's pretty close (tone of voice is in brackets)
Talky Lady: "ugh..." pushes paper about a bit, like a finiky child might with sprouts on her plate. Flips pages back and then forward, then returns to offending photograph (declarative)"I don't like all this stuff on TV nowadays."
Patrick: (friendly and neutrally interested) "what's that?"
TL: "Well there's all this..." pause (disgusted) gestures at paper "... gay stuff!"
P: raises eyebrow (non-committal with a dash of surprise) "oh?"
TL: (more declarative) "it's just disgusting seeing it on Telly."
P: eyebrow edges higher (amusedly questioning) "really?"
TL: realisation dawns that's she might have misjudged this (pre-emptively defensive) "of course I don't mean gay people..." shuffles paper again "... I don't have a problem with gay people but"* (adopts tone of one describing the smell of vomit) "seeing it..."
P: involuntarily pulls the "hmm" face (adopts tone you'd use to say 'that's nice dear') "I see."
... At this point she'd picked up that this wasn't a line of conversation she was going to enroll me in and some idea of how she sounded. So she began frantically back-pedalling, embarrassedly covering for her exposed bigotry like someone who's just realised their knickers are showing. I managed not to laugh.
A long-ish monologue followed about how there was just too much kissing on TV really and of course it really didn't matter if it was a man and a woman or a man and a man she "just didn't need to see that"... (perhaps I'm maligning her and she really has reacted with disgust to all the billions of straight screen kisses she's seen screened in her life... but I doubt it.) after a few minutes of which I took pity and threw her an exit line about most programs just using it to be sensational anyway (which is true) and it often having nothing to do with the plot. This let her off talking about it any more, much to her apparent relief.
What amused me was the way in which, without saying or even really intoning any direct disapproval, I'd managed to make it abundantly clear just how far out of line her "disgusting" comment was... (and that part is quoted verbatim.) From then on the poor woman remained quite uncomfortable, and when when the mechanics waved that they'd finished patching up her Mondeo, she had the look of one released from death row!
* Incidentally why does anyone ever bother saying this? it's the conversational equivalent of strapping a big flashing neon sign to ones self which reads "homophobe in denial"
The two bright-sides to having to go and get it sorted out this morning (you can't keep driving on an emergency spare for long) were firstly the very lovely mechanic I dealt with at Kwik-Fit. We liked him! (by which I mean I did): he was sexy in a very straight-forwardly Scottish way, and he had a lovely voice which made me calm down about the whole thing. With being so much later into town than usual I hit lots of very bad traffic, and then got to Kwik Fit to find I'd left my walet in my other trousers (which of course I'd changed a wheel in and couldn't wear to work.) So all in all I was more than a little stressed, but he had a calm and capable air to him and made me feel it was all alright...
*cough*
anyway... The other thing just made me laugh. One of the other customers waiting was a friendly middle aged woman - one of these types who needs to keep finding things to talk to people about in waiting rooms. I'm just the opposite: I can happily sit quietly the whole time, but I'll also (usually) make the effort to be friendly...
After another lady she'd been talking to left Talky Lady and I chatted happily away about nothing in particular for a while, and then kind of ran out of things to say. Like I said this is fine by me, but I don't think she enjoyed silence - she kept leafing through the papers and engaging me in short conversations about bits of news. After a few minutes of this she reached a full page article (with pictures) about a gay screen-kiss that apparently aired recently on Coronation Street (the paper in question was 'the Sun', and you can always rely on it to cut right to the really serious issues... *rolls eyes*) anyway it was on the little table between us so I could see both the article and (via the wrinkle of her nose at seeing it) what was coming. This isn't a word for word transcript but it's pretty close (tone of voice is in brackets)
Talky Lady: "ugh..." pushes paper about a bit, like a finiky child might with sprouts on her plate. Flips pages back and then forward, then returns to offending photograph (declarative)"I don't like all this stuff on TV nowadays."
Patrick: (friendly and neutrally interested) "what's that?"
TL: "Well there's all this..." pause (disgusted) gestures at paper "... gay stuff!"
P: raises eyebrow (non-committal with a dash of surprise) "oh?"
TL: (more declarative) "it's just disgusting seeing it on Telly."
P: eyebrow edges higher (amusedly questioning) "really?"
TL: realisation dawns that's she might have misjudged this (pre-emptively defensive) "of course I don't mean gay people..." shuffles paper again "... I don't have a problem with gay people but"* (adopts tone of one describing the smell of vomit) "seeing it..."
P: involuntarily pulls the "hmm" face (adopts tone you'd use to say 'that's nice dear') "I see."
... At this point she'd picked up that this wasn't a line of conversation she was going to enroll me in and some idea of how she sounded. So she began frantically back-pedalling, embarrassedly covering for her exposed bigotry like someone who's just realised their knickers are showing. I managed not to laugh.
A long-ish monologue followed about how there was just too much kissing on TV really and of course it really didn't matter if it was a man and a woman or a man and a man she "just didn't need to see that"... (perhaps I'm maligning her and she really has reacted with disgust to all the billions of straight screen kisses she's seen screened in her life... but I doubt it.) after a few minutes of which I took pity and threw her an exit line about most programs just using it to be sensational anyway (which is true) and it often having nothing to do with the plot. This let her off talking about it any more, much to her apparent relief.
What amused me was the way in which, without saying or even really intoning any direct disapproval, I'd managed to make it abundantly clear just how far out of line her "disgusting" comment was... (and that part is quoted verbatim.) From then on the poor woman remained quite uncomfortable, and when when the mechanics waved that they'd finished patching up her Mondeo, she had the look of one released from death row!
* Incidentally why does anyone ever bother saying this? it's the conversational equivalent of strapping a big flashing neon sign to ones self which reads "homophobe in denial"
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
oops
I am doing the photo album, I just didn't get round to it last night...
oh and Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
oh and Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
weekend update
This weekend I went to Newcastle with Hamish to visit my friend Abby and set up a few things on her shiny shiny new computer, which is very impressive! Mostly what we spent our weekend doing though was walking on beaches (along Tynemouth beach from Whitley Bay on Saturday and then up the beach at Bamburgh to the castle on Sunday.) Later today when I'm at home and can ftp, I promise I'll put up a little photo album for you all but if you're reading this before Tuesday evening you'll just have to be patient and use your imagination.
Beyond the impending photos I'm not going to do a "what I did at the weekend" type entry because it would be very long and probably not all that interesting to read. I'll just say that I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends and exploring more of Newcastle.
What I am going to post about though is the sea: I miss living within walking distance of a beach, much like you might miss an old friend. In my first year at Aberdeen Dad used to joke that the beach was my best friend and he wasn't far wrong at the time: I spent whole days down there just walking or sitting or reading... just being... and I loved it.
Even after I got over my own shyness, and had places other than the sea to go to from my isolated little self-catering hovel - and even people to go and be with! I'd still visit the sea as often as I could. In the early days of first-year I quickly found that everyone I wanted to be with, lived away down in the catered halls on campus. The self-catering student village I'd chosen to live in seemed populated entirely by noisy nocturnal creatures I had nothing in common with except (mercifully!) my sleeping patterns. Not living where 'everyone else' was it took a couple of months of being alone most of the time, before I really had any kind of social circle in Aberdeen.
As the city warmed up socially I found many of my new friends were as infatuated with the sea as I, and we'd go in twos and threes and twentys down to walk on the sand as often as Artic Circle weather would permit (which is more often than you might think!) My best memories of that city have as their sound track the music of friends' voices against the precussion track of sea on sand...
After I moved to Edinburgh the sea and I became the kind of old friends who only get to see each other on weekends and holidays, but every time I'm near it I feel charged, especially when it's as animated as it was this weekend. One day I'll live by the sea again, but in the mean time I must make sure to visit it more often.
Beyond the impending photos I'm not going to do a "what I did at the weekend" type entry because it would be very long and probably not all that interesting to read. I'll just say that I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends and exploring more of Newcastle.
What I am going to post about though is the sea: I miss living within walking distance of a beach, much like you might miss an old friend. In my first year at Aberdeen Dad used to joke that the beach was my best friend and he wasn't far wrong at the time: I spent whole days down there just walking or sitting or reading... just being... and I loved it.
Even after I got over my own shyness, and had places other than the sea to go to from my isolated little self-catering hovel - and even people to go and be with! I'd still visit the sea as often as I could. In the early days of first-year I quickly found that everyone I wanted to be with, lived away down in the catered halls on campus. The self-catering student village I'd chosen to live in seemed populated entirely by noisy nocturnal creatures I had nothing in common with except (mercifully!) my sleeping patterns. Not living where 'everyone else' was it took a couple of months of being alone most of the time, before I really had any kind of social circle in Aberdeen.
As the city warmed up socially I found many of my new friends were as infatuated with the sea as I, and we'd go in twos and threes and twentys down to walk on the sand as often as Artic Circle weather would permit (which is more often than you might think!) My best memories of that city have as their sound track the music of friends' voices against the precussion track of sea on sand...
After I moved to Edinburgh the sea and I became the kind of old friends who only get to see each other on weekends and holidays, but every time I'm near it I feel charged, especially when it's as animated as it was this weekend. One day I'll live by the sea again, but in the mean time I must make sure to visit it more often.
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